Star Trek: Shattered Universe Hands-On

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Sulu rides solo in upcoming Trek adventure.

By Ed Lewis

The Star Trek franchise has held up pretty well over the years. It has brought us ten movies, hundreds of TV shows, bazillions of conventions around the world, the Klingon language, massive piles of toys, and, yes, videogames. We're beginning to get the feeling that this whole space as the final frontier thing could be going on for quite a bit longer than Roddenberry ever imagined. Keeping with Gene's twisted science fiction imaginings, Star Trek: Shattered Universe sets a plot rolling with an accidental trip through a vortex and a long struggle home.

Captain Sulu, voiced by George Takei himself, is in charge of the USS Excelsior and after trying to rescue Commander Chekov, voiced by Walter Koenig, he gets sucked across space through a vortex to the far reaches of the universe. Of course, the vortex gets destroyed in the process, stranding him and his crew in hostile territory. As a fighter pilot, the gamer's role is to clear the way for the USS Excelsior to make it back home safely.

We got to play the first few levels of ST:SU and test out the spaceship mechanics. The physics here are leaning towards a more arcade style than sim style. Thrusters control the forward and backward motion for the craft and can cause the ship to go from full throttle to reverse in a few seconds. This enables strategies that involve flying right up to an enemy ship and coming to a dead halt to fire off a few rounds. If an enemy ship flies right by, it's easy to do a quick u-turn and fly off in the other direction at full speed.

As for the weapons, the first few levels featured a pretty basic set. The ships have three weapons each: a laser and two forms of photon cannon. The laser is the primary weapon here and the photon cannons are secondary. All of the weapons currently cause similar amounts of damage. Since the laser is an instantaneous shot, the photon cannons didn't have any lock-on capabilities or any difference in strength, the laser is easily the favored weapon here.

The first few missions focus on surviving and protecting the USS Excelsior as wave after wave of enemies fly in to attack. There are sometimes a couple of other allied fighters to help out, but the main work is carried out by the gamer's ship. What we played were essentially solo missions to kill off the invaders before the USS Excelsior's shields give out and the ship is destroyed. So far, it's been a bit simplistic, but it's still too early to tell for the rest of the game.

ST:SU is being developed by Starsphere Interactive for TDK Interactive and this is their first foray onto the PS2 as well as the arcade genre in general. With a list of unrelated games in their history like Chessmaster 3D or You Don't Know Jack Mock 2 it will be interesting to see how ST:SU will shape up in the future. Will it be a different take on an old idea or a simple arcade space shooter? Check back later for a full review.